


The Person You Marry

by Distractivate



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Future Fic, Husbands, M/M, Sweet Bit of Fluff, Your song, serenades
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-12 14:00:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19947313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Distractivate/pseuds/Distractivate
Summary: It arrived on a Saturday afternoon. David approached it warily, a looming presence in the corner of their new house where he had planned on a tasteful seating grouping. Having missed the spectacle of its arrival, it almost felt to David as if it had simply appeared. An ominous warning that his worst fear may well be realized: the person you marry does not stay the person you marry."Relax, David. It’s just a piano," Patrick says.Or, a little bit of sentimental fluff about how Patrick learns to play the piano.





	The Person You Marry

**Author's Note:**

> I just finished a long fic, was feeling wrung out from it, and was planning to take a break. Then Noah Reid went and updated his Instagram for like the second time this year with a photo of him playing the piano and well… here we are. 
> 
> Set sometime after they are married.

It arrived on a Saturday afternoon. David approached it warily, a looming presence in the corner of their new house where he had planned on a tasteful seating grouping. Having missed the spectacle of its arrival, it almost felt to David as if it had simply appeared. An ominous warning that his worst fear may well be realized: the person you marry does not stay the person you marry.

“Relax, David. It’s just a piano,” Patrick says. David hasn’t even spoken. He rarely needs to. Patrick only needs to read his body to read his mind.

“Okay,” is all David can say.

It wouldn’t be so bad, David thinks, if Patrick had simply wanted to get a piano. They could have picked one that was tasteful and fit the rest of David’s vision for their home. Or better yet, a keyboard that could be tucked away in the closet. But this piano, Patrick’s late grandmother’s piano, is a faux mahogany abomination with discolored keys and a lid that sits slightly askew. It has ugly carved scallop details and out-of-proportion turned wood legs and crooked brass feet. David takes it in. He doesn't need to make a survey of his memory to know that it’s the ugliest piano he has ever seen. He hopes Patrick isn’t good enough at reading him yet to read that thought too.

David touches it cautiously, as though a sudden movement might awaken it to drown them in ragtime agony. He tries his best not to think about what other things he might be asked to invite into their lives, now that he’s opened the door and allowed this thing to colonize their living room.

\-----

“You know when we bought that iPad, you said it was to do businessy stuff for the store,” David whines a week later as Patrick is plunking scales at the piano keys, following along with an app he’s downloaded to help him learn to play. David hoped Patrick’s knowledge of guitar would carry over and he would pick up the piano quickly. His hopes were quickly dashed.

“I do use it for businessy stuff at the store,” Patrick says without looking up.

“I believe you called it a write-off.”

“Actually you called it that, but you were right. It is a write-off.” He’s still focused, eyes flitting back and forth from the app to his hands.

“So how do you think the tax people would feel if they found out you’re using it recreationally to slowly drive your husband insane?”

Patrick does look up at David then. It's a long look, the kind of look that says _I love you, but don’t push this._ David is trying hard to listen to Patrick’s looks, the way Patrick listens to David’s. So David puts in his earbuds and pretends that each successive note is not a plucky cringe along his spine.

Now, Patrick only practices when David is out of the house.

\-----

It’s three months later when David comes home from dinner with his sister. He hears the piano from the sidewalk outside. It’s not great. It comes in fits and starts but there’s a recognizable melody. A chord of warm low notes plunks down too hard, a half step off.

“Fuck,” Patrick swears. David smiles.

David stops and listens to his husband’s grumpy mutterings, to bits of songs interrupted by frustrated poundings. It’s hard to work Patrick up. He’s so patient with David, so understanding, even when he’s upset. David’s not sure why he stays there on the sidewalk outside their window, listening. Maybe it’s because he hates the piano and enjoys the sound of Patrick beating the shit out of it. Maybe it’s because he loves Patrick even when, maybe especially when, he comes a little unglued.

\-----

As months go by, David almost forgets about the piano. He never hears Patrick play it. He’s long-since gotten used to looking anywhere else when he’s in its vicinity. It’s been more than a year since it arrived and it’s settled into their home like the boring books Patrick leaves laying around and the Blue Jays cap Patrick wears when he mows the lawn and the ugly tea tin Patrick’s parents gave them for their wedding that now has to live on their counter, a blue country-kitchen enamelware monstrosity speckled with white. These are things David has learned to accept, even adore, because they are signs that he has made a home with the man he loves, a man who is distinct from him even while he becomes ever more a part of him. That doesn’t mean he has to look at these things when he walks past.

\-----

On a rainy Tuesday, Patrick sits at the piano and asks David to join him on the bench. David looks suspicious.

“Don’t make me get out the fringed vest,” he quips with a soft grin that says he really will do it. It’s a good thing he doesn’t actually have one. At least David hopes he doesn’t.

David vows to withhold any second-hand embarrassment and sits next to his husband on the narrow bench. It rocks a bit, but it stays standing.

“Do you remember when my grandma died?” he asks. He starts playing softly. It’s not really a melody, just little nothings fluttering under his fingers. It sounds surprisingly competent.

“Yes,” David says, cautiously.

“My mom called and said she was almost out of time. I left to go see her and Alexis took my ticket and went on our vacation to Montreal with you to see Elton John.”

“I remember.”

“But you didn’t see the show.”

Patrick is still playing quietly, looking at his hands. David smiles softly.

“I didn’t.”

“You left Montreal the next day and came to my grandma's house to be with me. You sat with me and held me when my grandma died. You stayed with me for-“ Patrick can’t finish. His fingers pause on the keys. He pushes through the lump in his throat, voice thick. “You were with me for the week after the funeral when we cleaned out her house.”

“Hey. Hey, it’s okay,” David says, pulling him close, pressing a soft kiss to his temple.

“Anyway, I tried to find tickets to another show, but they were sold out or we couldn’t afford them, and it’s his last tour, so we sort of missed our shot. I’ve felt bad about it ever since.”

“You have? Patrick I haven’t thought about it once,” he says. It’s true, he realizes. Patrick needed him, Patrick who so rarely needs him, and he’d just gone. He hasn’t regretted a minute with Patrick and this was no exception.

“Well since I couldn’t get tickets… I’m hoping this is enough.” he says.

He starts playing, the notes start to take a more familiar form. The melody is soft. It’s not a cover exactly, but an approximation. And it’s Patrick’s voice, the voice that digs down inside him and pulls out David’s truest self. A voice that’s always been so much more than enough.

 _It's a little bit funny this feeling inside_  
_I'm not one of those who can easily hide, I_  
_Don't have much money but boy if I did_  
_I'd buy a big house where we both could live_

 _If I was a sculptor, but then again no_  
_Or a man who makes potions in a traveling show_  
_Oh I know it's not much but it's the best I can do_  
_My gift is my song_  
_And this one's for you_

David leans his head against Patrick’s shoulder so he can feel the notes at the same time as he hears them, eyes closed, a quiet smile settled on his face.

 _And you can tell everybody this is your song_  
_It may be quite simple but now that it's done_  
_I hope you don't mind_  
_I hope you don't mind_  
_That I put down in words_  
_How wonderful life is while you're in the world_

As David lets his husband’s voice wash over him in their living room, the arrangement now permanently made awkward by this tattered box in the corner, he smiles as his worst fears are confirmed. The person you marry does not stay the person you marry. They become the person who finds hobbies that make your skin crawl but you don’t care, because it makes you so happy to see them so happy. They become the person you wake up to after a difficult fight and still feel safe with. They become the person who cancels their deepest desired plans to carry you through your hardest hours. They become the person who asks things of you that you don’t want to do, but you’ll do anyway, just because they ask. They become the person who can see everything you’re thinking and lets you think it, lets you feel it, even if it hurts them. They become a person with wrinkles and flaws and scars and who grows more beautiful by the day for it. They become a person who tires of your habits and gets irritated, and at the same time falls ever more in love with you. The person you marry becomes the person who one day in the midst of all of that, surprises you with the very kind of thing that made you want to marry them to begin with.


End file.
